8/01/2008

PCBs

The circuit boards finally arrived! Damn it’s nice not having to etch and drill by hand. I’ll put some pictures of them up in the Electronics section when I get a chance.

~flight

posted by flight at 6:48 AM

5/12/2008

Changes and more!

I know – I’m horrible about updates. I promise to try to post more often!

Current news: Things are going through a bit of a shakeup of late, so we are re-organizing. “What, pray tell, could possibly be occurring?” did you say? It is an interesting tale which I will gladly tell to you now!

While working on the I.N.M., the goal was to produce an end product that was as professional as possible in its appearance as it was in its design. After we finished the prototype, work began on sourcing the components, hardware and enclosure. After a few rude awakenings to the state of craftsmanship and creativity available in the US today (not to mention the economy), the decision was made to pare things back a bit – no custom enclosure, just a modified off-the-shelf case with pre-punched holes and basic graphics. The costs were still astronomical! We then trimmed the requirements to the barest minimum to get a lowball cost/pricing idea: Our cost – with NO special graphics, paint color, hand-drilling all holes, with the cheapest parts available, and not counting labor, wire, solder, etc… – was over $200! No wonder everything is made in China nowadays!

This just floored me. It also brought to mind something else that has always
reatly saddened me – all the wonderful yet out-dated equipment that is just thrown away. My favorite idle pastime is rummaging through the shelves at one of the electronics salvage places, there are so many fascinating devices there! Incredible cases covered in knobs and dials, cryptic boxes with hundreds of switches, and so many other cool objects. Most of this just ends up in a landfill. Why not repurpose them instead?

So that is our direction now. Our devices will continue to be designed to the highest possible standards in engineering, and the enclosures and hardware will be recycled materials chosen with the equally high standards in design and artistic flair! Wheee! Plus, I get to finally reduce my hoard of scrounged goodies before my Lady kicks me out! Again with the wheee! w00tz all around… The coming product lines will, of course, be limited to only a few individual units. If we come across a treasure pile that allows bigger runs, we will!

This does not mean that, once the X available units are sold, that is the end of the circuit however, just that physical styling. Later versions will be done if another style of enclosure or hardware is found that will work well. To satisfy my obsessive need to have some consistent theme or appearance to a product line, each line – regardless of housing – will be adorned with a “critter” that as (in my mind at least) directly related to the name of that line.

In case you were wondering, ALL recycled components will be carefully inspected and, if necessary, restored. WE WILL ONLY USE COMPONENTS THAT PERFORM RELIABLY AND HAVE THE SAME LIFESAN OF NEW COMPONENTS. Therefore, all flight of harmony products will carry a lifetime guarantee against defects in workmanship or component failure that is due to the age of that component. In these cases, we will even cover shipping costs if necessary.

And so, to bring this lengthy post to a close, we would like to announce the device that we have been working on in the interim: the Plague Bearer quad voltage-controlled resonant bandpass filter! I have had these wonderful enclosures sitting in my packrat hoard for some time now, mercilessly taunting me to do something with them so, here it is. This is the first of the shipping units, ready to go:

And a peek inside as well:

Here is the aforementioned critter who will serve as the Plague Bearer totem:

Ain’t he cute? Rather fitting, I feel. Version 1 is limited to three units. I hope to acquire more of these delightful enclosures but, we shall see what the Fates decide. We are preparing the Plague Bearer page and hope to have it up tonight or tomorrow, with plenty of sound samples.

What’s next? Two more devices are in the works: A single-channel miniature version of the Plague Bearer, and a handy “function generator” (read: control-voltage source).

posted by flight at 3:20 PM

1/11/2009

Busy busy busy…

Sorry again for the lack of updates, here’s what’s going on:

• Due to the aforementioned weather, very few shipments in or out were able to happen for almost three weeks, neither parts coming in or orders going out. Ergo, I am ~3 weeks behind and scrabbling madly to catch up.
• I am currently processing the joystick & potentiometer orders which should go out tomorrow.
• PB & PB Barebones orders will happen next – my work area (A.K.A. our living room O_O) is far too crammed with boxes of joysticks & other parts to do any electronic work.

Thanks for your patience, please email me if you have any concerns!

~flight

posted by flight at 1:55 PM

11/25/2008

Making IDC & MTA tooling, part 2

Yesterday, I (sort of) showed the process of making a die head for terminating an AMP 0.100″ MTA connector. I also needed to make a die head for the 0.156″ size, which I did yesterday. I tried to document the process a bit better this time – ADHD is not very conducive to multithreading, but I tried. :)
As usual, click on an image for the larger size.

Start:
I didn’t have enough pieces in my scrap collection that were of the correct thicknesses, so I went to the hardware store. Most hardware stores – REAL hardware stores, not Home Despot or Lowes – have little racks containing small cuts of aluminum, brass, and stainless steel, usually in different thicknesses, widths, and stock (flat, round, tube, sheet, angle, channel, etc.).
The 0.156″ IDC need blade widths of 0.60″ spaced (obviously) 0.156″ apart. Standard sheet/plate thicknesses include 0.63″ and 0.93″ which are perfect for this application. If the blades are 63mil, then 156mil-63mil=93mil between blades. Sweet.
I went with brass since it is easier to machine than steel and will last much longer than aluminum, and brass is usually available in the largest variety of sizes & shapes.

Here is a lousy shot of the base stock:

Next was to cut the pieces: four blades, 3 spacers.

I left more of the bench in this shot to show the tools I was using and the final version of the 0.100″ MTA press setup. Oh yeah: the “press” I’m using is an adapted Dremel model 212 (older style) drill press. I’ll cover the Dremel press later.

As you can see, I’m mostly using basic hand tools for all this. The razor saws are wonderful little toys – they can cut wood, plastic, and non-ferrous metal, even some softer ferrous metals – and are very thin. Most common hacksaw blades have teeth that are “wavy set”, if you look at the teeth they are tilted away from the centerline of the blade by varying amounts in the form of a wave running along the saw edge. This is to allow chips of material to be moved away from the area of cut so the next tooth makes contact with the uncut material. That’s nice when you are just cutting pieces to size, but it increases the width of the cut. The razor saws are usually straight-set, so the width of the blade is the width of the cut, and they produce the finest cuts you can get with simple hand tools.

The rest are pretty straightforward – small files for shaping, a vise for holding, and a stone for smoothing & truing-up uneven surfaces. Later you will see some needle files that are used for more precise shaping.

Here are the pieces assembled & clamped for drilling:

I forgot to take pictures until I had already drilled the second hole, but the next steps:
Put the clamp in the vise. Use a center punch to mark where the hole will be & to guide the drill. Drill the hole.
Since the pieces are so small, I had to insert a screw in the first hole (with a lockwasher and nut on the other side) to hold the piece together. Then I could remove the clamp and hold the piece in the vise directly and drill the second hole.
The second hole with associated screw started, as well as a view of the mess that is my workbench:

A closer view of the piece:

The edges of the piece are uneven at this stage, so I wrapped the piece in electrical tape to give the vise a better grip – steel does not conform well to uneven surfaces.

The next step was to cut the slots that will allow clearance for the connector terminals. I missed a few pictures again, but here’s what happened in the interim:
Take a connector and cut away any obstructing pieces of plastic.
Using a permanent marker, paint the surfaces that will be cut.
Place the connector on the piece and smack it with a mallet or other object. (Interesting trivia – the difference between a hammer and a mallet: A hammer is harder than what you hit with it, while a mallet is softer than what you hit with it.) This will scrape away the ink where you need to cut, leaving shiny guide marks.
Cut the slots.

I didn’t want to trim the blades narrower, so I had to cut a wide groove to allow clearance for the thick plastic wall that clamps the insulation where the wires enter the connector.
You can see the grooves that run the length of each blade. These grooves keep the wire from slipping to the side as you press them in – which usually results in a mangled or severed wire. I did this on the 0.100″ die head too.
These grooves are kind of tricky – you are trying to make a cut in a piece that is onle 63mils wide after all – so require some patience. All saws and files will try to wander a bit if you do not have a guiding groove or cut and, on a piece this small, that can be disastrous. Use an X-acto or other sharp knife to make a guide cut on the end corner of the piece (another reason to use brass), then take your file or saw and slowly enlarge the groove a little until it is enough to hold the saw/file without wandering. Then, carefully, extend the groove across the face of the die blade.
Now for the needle files: Once you have a cut of sufficient depth across the die blade, use a triangular needle file to widen the cut out towards the edges of the die blade. Next, use a file that has a narrow, rounded edge to turn the triangular groove into a rounded groove.
Finally, check the fit of the die head into the connector and then clean up the edges so there are no burrs or sharp corners.

Once again, I skipped a few photo ops – making the piece to hold the die head. I located a piece in my junk pile that was u-shaped and fit closely around the die head, drilled holes to match the two screw holes in the die and one for the press bolt, and trimmed it to size.

Here’s the final setup & another bench shot:

There were some other experiments during this process that I’ll cover at a later date – like using a Dremel tool in the drill press as a mill (terrifying experience!), how to adapt the Dremel drill press to work as an actual press, and how to just modify the Dremel drill press so it’s not such a piece of shit – but I’ve GOT to get back to work.

r />Tomorrow I hope to finish this series with the adaptation of a basic ribbon-cable IDC hand press.

posted by flight at 7:34 AM

10/28/2008

Plague Bearer module Demo Video by Surachai

Surachai has made an incredible demo video for the Plague Bearer module:

Flight of Harmony: Plague Bearer Demo from surachai on Vimeo.
You really should read his description of it on >TRASH_AUDIO as well – a masterly summation if I may say so!

posted by flight at 12:27 PM

5/05/2009

Time out!

Hello again all, I’m calling a time out for the next couple weeks.
I’m working my way through the backlog of orders right now and don’t want to get any further behind, so I am not accepting any orders until further notice.

For those waiting, here’s a quick rundown of what & when:

• All Plague Bearer r3.1 Barebones have shipped
• All Plague Bearer r3.1 euro modules ship tomorrow and Thursday
• All Choices euro modules, kits & Barebones should ship tomorrow and Thursday
• Frac Choices will hopefully go out Monday
• Infernal Noise Machines are finally being finished next week
• Quad Plague Bearers are week after next – maybe sooner depending on the INMs

As always, please do not hesitate to contact me for any reason. I try to maintain email communication as much as possible, but I tend to freak myself out during production runs and end up in hyper-focus panic mode. Which means I obsess over getting everything finished and forget to do anything else, like sending out notices or updates, eat food, get some freaking sleep, etc.

Emails, however, tend to override my production obsession and activate my “must respond to email!” compulsion, so that’s a good thing :)

Thanks all, I’ll update the progress list tomorrow.
~flight

posted by flight at 11:14 PM

9/14/2008

Yay, new stuff!

I’ve been rather busy, so here’s some new stuff:

• Plague Bearer Barebones pack – Just the basic components for you to install in whatever you want.
• Plague Bearer Modules – Some teaser pictures. The panels should arrive at the end of next week. Eurorack format, single and dual channel versions.

I’ve also finally finished the “secret” page. It contains my old albums, from way back when I had the time to compose.

OK, back to work.
~flight

posted by flight at 3:43 PM

7/29/2008

Into the void?

If you email me with a question and do not receive a reply within 24 hours, please email me again. I always respond to emails, usually within 1-2 hours. A lot of people write me, expressing interest in a device but with some questions. I never hear from them again. This may be intentional, but it happens enough to make me wonder if my responses are not getting through.

~flight

posted by flight at 7:39 AM

5/31/2008

Oh yeah, the words….

Heh, I just remembered that whole “I promise to write more” thing…

Okiedokie! First off,I guess I should clarify something: when I use the word “we”, I really mean “I”. I have philosophical issues about speaking/writing in first-person singular when addressing a largely theoretical audience. That’s the annoying thing about the internet – you never know if anyone is actually reading what you write.

For the most part, flight of harmony is one person. There is a theoretical second body but, for now, all the work is done by flight. (
“So”, you say, “what the hell has been going on recently?” Filling orders! The Plague Bearer has been quite a learning experience. Primarily that I REALLY low-balled the price. So it goes. These enclosures, although freaking cool, are very labor-intensive. However, I have some ideas for future enclosures that will raise the bar a little.

The concept of offering rack-mount versions has been brought to my attention recently. I think that is an intriguing idea! While my main focus is on the oft-neglected live-performing musician, offering studio versions makes damn good sense. To whit, I will work on some EuroRack format versions of the Infernal Noise Machine and version 2 of the Plague Bearer as soon as I am done with the current orders.

Another thing: Any and all comments are not only welcome, but desired! While I have received lots of interest and comments regarding both the I.N.M. and the Plague Bearer, I have only received ONE email regarding anything else. What do you really WANT? What is that complaint that you have had running in the back of your head, the one that sounds like “why hasn’t anyone made…”, or “That’s great, but it should do…”, or even “What the hell?” I highly suggest that everyone should read the manifesto on Deviant Synth. That should give you an idea as to what I am talking about.

Anyway, thanks for all the support! I hope we can all work together on pushing the boundaries of music to unforeseen levels!

~flight

posted by flight at 12:45 PM

7/07/2008

I is a good monkey!

The Parasite samples are up!

posted by flight at 2:07 PM